Who can resist the unique buzz of the world's grandest athletic spectacle and the glamor of its opening night?

Not Christine Lagarde, by the looks of it.

The European Central Bank President is set to skip the G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bankers later this week in Rio de Janeiro, where policymakers will discuss collaboration on key economic polices on climate and poverty, as well as emerging risks to the global financial system.

She'll also miss a meeting of G7 officials immediately before that, which is expected to make further progress on a $50 billion loan program for Ukraine.

Instead, Lagarde will be attending the Paris Summit 2024 Sport for Sustainable Development, 90 minutes of glad-handing by the great and good on the eve of the Olympic Games, organized by the Agence Française de Développement, a development body controlled by the French state.

She then plans to attend the opening ceremony on Friday.

While Lagarde is in Paris, the ECB will be represented at the G20 and G7 by Executive Board member Piero Cipollone, “in line with his responsibility for International and European Relations,” an ECB spokesperson said. “The President will be in close contact with him.”

Nevertheless, Lagarde’s decision not to travel to Brazil may raise some eyebrows, given the relative importance of the two events. The ECB is a key player in matters of global finance, and Lagarde has gone out of her way to stress the importance of using the Russian reserves, in particular, in a way that doesn't endanger the euro's role as an international reserve currency.

The ECB will be represented at the G20 and G7 by Executive Board member Piero Cipollone. | Krill Kudryavtsev/Getty Images

One former ECB policymaker expressed disbelief that the ECB President would ditch a G20 meeting in favor of the Olympics. Some ECB watchers also expressed concerns. “There are must-dos and can-dos for an ECB President,” said BayernLB's chief economist Jürgen Michels. “G20 meetings are considered to be a core part of an ECB President’s job.”

By contrast, the ECB’s interest in sustainable sport is, at best, marginal. There are no particularly strong links between the ECB and the conference's organizer, and according to the ECB’s weekly schedule, Lagarde will merely be “attending” the conference, rather than speaking at it.

Other absentees

To be sure, not every central bank governor goes to every G20 meeting, which come around faster than they used to: Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will also be absent in Rio, sending vice-chair Philip Jefferson in his place.

The French top brass will also be missing: Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire is staying home, ostensibly to work on the budget amendments that Paris will need to appease the European Commission in September. French central bank chief François Villeroy de Galhau will also not attend, sending his deputy Agnès Benassy-Quéré. The Bank of France offered no official reason for that decision.

However, Andrew Bailey of the Bank of England, Deutsche Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel and Bank of Italy Governor Fabio Panetta — who make up the rest of Europe's contingent in the G20 — will all be in Rio.

Gone girl

It's not the first time that Lagarde has appeared to use her diary to tend to her domestic profile, and such appearances keep alive the impression — always downplayed by Lagarde herself — that the former finance minister still harbors political ambitions.

“I think that if you want to run for President of France, you have no choice but to go to the Olympics,” said EFG Bank economist Stefan Gerlach, a veteran of various senior central banking positions, with a nod to long-running speculation.

Likewise, Lagarde has also at time been absent in places where she might have been expected, notably when missing the high-profile Federal Reserve Jackson Hole conference in August 2022 — six months after Russia launched its war against Ukraine and inflation was spiraling out of control.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will also be absent in Rio. | Nathan Howard/Getty Images

While fellow policymakers made headlines discussing the world’s frightening economic challenges, Lagarde gave an interview to French women’s magazine Madame Figaro in which she discussed her summer reading. That prompted German business daily Handelsblatt to write: “Jackson Hole without the ECB chief: the world is burning, Lagarde reads Joyce.”

This time around, however, she may be given more understanding, said ING's Global Head of Macro Carsten Brzeski, pointing to the limited agenda at the G20 and her own well-documented past in competitive sport: Lagarde won a bronze medal for synchronized swimming in the French National Championships at the tender age of 15.

Victoria Guida and Carlo Boffa contributed to this report.